Operating Systems

PTFs: How to Manage Them and Why You Need To

Wed, 08 May 2013 06:00:15 +0100

In order to get true bang for your buck, you need to be installing IBM i updates on a regular basis. Written by Steve Pitcher What is a PTF? PTF stands for Program Temporary Fix, which could have been an accurate descriptor 25 years ago, but today the term is very misleading. PTFs include much more than just fixes. In fact, many new and exciting development features of the IBM i operating system are brought to you via PTF, most notably in the new Technology Refresh concept. More on that shortly...

Windows 8 for IBM i and AIX IT Administration

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 06:00:15 +0100

Windows 8 offers opportunities for serious Endpoint Management. Written by Thomas M. Stockwell The new Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft is entering our organizations as a new baseline for personal computers. For our users, the learning curve for the new OS will undoubtedly be challenging at first, but for IT administrators the addition of Windows 8—particularly for IBM i and AIX administrators—unravels an annoying support issue for the organization's infrastructure....

Windows 8 and Software Distribution Complexities

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:00:15 +0100

Windows 8 creates great opportunities for some but problems for others. Written by Thomas M. Stockwell By now, Microsoft's latest version of Windows (Windows 8) is making its way into your organization's infrastructure. Whether you're a software developer working in your company's IT shop, an IT administrator, or a consulting developer who supplies software to your clients, Microsoft's Windows 8 offers you new opportunities…but with complications in distributing your code to your targeted PCs...

Is IBM i Access for Linux Right for Your Shop?

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 06:00:15 +0100

IBM has been notable in its support for the Linux operating system and open-source software in general, so the lack of the package would be ridiculous. But is it right for your shop? That depends. Written by Barry L. Kline When the IBMers determined that their AS/400 midrange line required a facelift if it was to survive in the new world of GUI-based servers, they turned first to the most obvious part: the interface. We old-timers are quite satisfied using the green-screen command line. It was ...

TechTip: Mksysb: Your AIX System Backup

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:00:15 +0100

Doing a mksysb is an important sys admin task. If you get a rootvg disk failure and you aren't mirrored up, you'll need to restore your system. Written by David Tansley A mksysb is an AIX system backup that allows you to restore your rootvg disks to what they were at the time the backup was taken. In effect, this restores your operating system. A mksysb backup should be taken at least once a week. There's really no need to do a mksysb more often than that, as very few changes will happen on you...

IBM i Trends and the IBM i Cloud

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:00:10 +0100

Is the i headed for extinction? No, not at all. Written by Connectria Hosting Editor's note: This article is an introduction to the white paper "IBM i Trends and the IBM i Cloud," available free from the MC White Paper Center. Probably as far back as two decades ago, when even IBM still officially called the platform AS/400 (as many of its users still do today), some recognized industry pundits, as well as many armchair IT forecasters, were forecasting the imminent doom of what is now ...

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:00:15 +0100

Is that the right philosophy to follow? Or should you not put off till tomorrow what you can do today? For the answer, think "upgrade." Written by Barry L. Kline If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That old adage has been around since the Carter administration. The down-home advice seems so logical and obvious that everyone may feel compelled to follow it. I know that with my busy schedule, it's easy for me to put off updating software on working systems when there are far more pressing ...

Understand Your Remote Git Repository Options and Choose the Best Solution for You

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:00:10 +0100

Learn how to support a multiple-developer version-control environment using source-code hosting for git repositories. Written by Tom Snyder Has your shop begun using multiple programming languages? The implementation of new options may not be on the top of the priority list. Code can be developed, priorities could change, staff could change, and by the time you go back to complete something you initiated a few months ago or try to find the source code for something that is deployed, you may hav...

What's Available to Protect Your Data in the Power AIX World

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 06:00:15 +0100

A 10,000-foot view shows that you have two major categories of data protection for your Power AIX: Disaster Recovery (DR) products and High Availability (HA) products. Written by Robert Seal Do you know that the HA solutions are most often used for normal maintenance? And that the most common cause of an outage is human? Sloppy network people taking down the network without letting users know, software bugs, and operator errors cause more than 50 percent of outages. Many people purchase HA pro...

Managing Disks and File Systems on AIX

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 06:00:10 +0100

Determine the size and type of disks, change a file system size, or add or remove a VG. It's all right here for you. Written by David Tansley Managing disk or data storage is a common task for system administrators. As data grows on the disks or file systems, you have to expand the storage area. In some cases, you have to reduce storage from one area and give it to another data area. To be able to do this, you must understand the information presented to you when you run any commands related to...

Power to the People!

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 06:00:15 +0100

The open-source operating system gets a Powerful boost. Written by Barry L. Kline In my last article, "Starting Your Sojourn into Virtualization on the Linux OS," I discussed the "no additional purchase necessary" virtualization that is embodied in the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine, referred to as KVM. For single-server use, such as I described with my co-located Web server, KVM is all that's required to take full advantage of the powerful commodity server hardware currently available. Lar...

Linux Foundation Focuses on Training in 2012

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 06:00:10 +0100

As the demand for IT professionals with Linux experience soars, training programs are moving to front and center for the non-profit organization charged with promoting the open-source platform. Written by Chris Smith The market for developers with Linux experience has been increasing during the past year, and, with the advent of cloud technology, there is also a growing need for Linux system architects. The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium founded in 2007, is charged with helpi...

Common Questions You Have About AIX Security but Were Afraid to Ask

Wed, 23 May 2012 06:00:15 +0100

In this article, security expert Carol Woodbury answers those nagging questions you have about AIX security. Written by Carol Woodbury Security terms are thrown about in articles and manuals, but do you know what they really mean? Below are some of the questions I asked when I was first learning about AIX security. Perhaps you have some of the same questions I did. Let's take a look....

What Is Informix and Why Should I Care?

Wed, 23 May 2012 06:00:10 +0100

Oh, and where's my TechTip?

Written by Art S. Kagel

I want to accomplish two things with this inaugural TechTip. Mainly, of course, I want to give you what you came here for, a TechTip, and we'll get to that shortly. Secondly, I want to lay out the course that this column will take so you will know what to expect and what I will be talking about here.

Technology Refresh 4 for IBM i 7.1 Has Something for Everyone

Mon, 07 May 2012 06:00:15 +0100

IBM responds to IBM i user and developer requests with major technology upgrade announcement in advance of the annual COMMON conference. Written by Chris Smith A few years ago, we in the high-tech publishing industry would get excited when we geared up for a major announcement about a new version of the IBM i operating system, usually just before COMMON. Nowadays, with the less disruptive quarterly technology refreshes, the incremental upgrades just keep rolling out, one after another. Whereas ...

Starting Your Sojourn into Virtualization on the Linux OS

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:00:15 +0100

It's important to know what your options are. Written by Barry L. Kline I have long been a fan of hardware virtualization, so when I purchased a new server to replace an aged one, I decided that it would be advantageous to make it a virtual host. The benefits of virtualization are now well-known to the IT community, and for my purposes, the biggest win is the ability to deploy new virtual servers quickly, while not having to make the two-hour trip to the co-location facility. What the heck? If ...

Use Git to Document and Manage Any Source Code with Version Control

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:00:10 +0100

Provide versioning and rollback capabilities to your source code with the resolution of individual code modifications. Written by Tom Snyder Programmers in any language have supported multiple versions of source code during development, the simplest case being that you can keep a copy of the current production code while you work on a new version that contains your current development changes. But what if you wanted to document each change and have the ability to selectively reset any changes w...

Driving the Power of AIX

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:00:15 +0100

Learn about performance tuning in this excerpt from the book Driving the Power of AIX. Written by Ken Milberg In this chapter, I identify and show you how to tune your virtual memory subsystem. In contrast to other subsystems, there is a lot you can do to improve performance from a virtual memory perspective. Before we get started, let me again state that, unless instructed otherwise, you should change only one parameter at a time. If you make multiple changes, you won't know precisely wh...

Webcast: Automating IBM AIX PCI Compliance Reporting

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:00:10 +0100

With SkyView Policy Minder for AIX, IT professionals can seamlessly manage PCI data on IBM servers. Written by Mary Rose Roberts Editor's Note: This article is a review of a Webcast about SkyView Policy Minder, available free at the MC Press Webcast Center. Monitoring systems that must be compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) can be done more efficiently with the help of SkyView's Policy Minder for AIX for IBM i and i5/OS. In the Webcast, Carol Woodbur...

The State of the Linux Union

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:00:15 +0100

What ever happened to that little OS that we used to hear so much about? Written by Barry L. Kline On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system, sent the fateful message to USENET announcing his creation. On August 25, 2012, the OS will be 21 years old. If Linux were human and an American citizen, it would then be old enough to consume adult beverages, carry concealed weapons (at least in Pennsylvania), and have all of the privileges of U.S. citizenship, with th...

Upgrading to 7.1: Nightmare or Dream Come True?

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:00:15 +0100

You haven't upgraded yet? What's the holdup? Written by David Shirey OK, quick show of hands. How many people are still on i5/OS 5.4 or below? Don't worry, nobody can see you. No embarrassment other than what you put on yourself. OK, that's fine, thank you. If you are just putting your hand down, don't feel too bad. A lot of good shops are still on some version of 5. Shoot, I even know someone who is on 4.3, although I certainly wouldn't acknowledge them in public. But don't feel too goo...

Tune AIX for Optimal Performance

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:00:15 +0100

Lots of great tools are available to help you evaluate and manage performance. Written by David Tansley This article looks at some of the popular tools available to gather information. Based on that information, you can then implement performance-related changes if required. When looking at performance issues, I tend to group them into the following categories: CPU bound Memory bound Disk access Network Process monitoring ...

Power i Forecast: IBM i Release Lifecycles and Support

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:00:15 +0100

Point and modification releases to IBM i have given way to the Technology Refresh, but nothing can replace a good program-maintenance strategy. Written by Chris Smith The term PTF, or "program temporary fix," has been part of the IBM vernacular for many years. It goes along with the conservative image Big Blue has cultivated of assigning a dignified term to what any other software developer would call a "bug fix." In years past, customers used to say that PTF stood for "permanent temporary fix"...

New Developer-Centric Tools in MS Visual Studio 2011 and .NET 4.5

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:00:15 +0100

It's that time again! Microsoft has a new version of the .NET framework and Visual Studio. In this article, the most promising features and tools of Visual Studio 2011 are described. Written by Chris Peters In September, the good folks at Microsoft released an evaluation version of Visual Studio 2011, called Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview, together with .NET Framework 4.5. It appears that this release of Microsoft's flagship development environment is moving toward a somewhat revised and sm...

ITG Executive Summary: Value Proposition for IBM Power Systems Servers and IBM i

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 06:00:10 +0100

How midsize businesses can addresses inherent challenges in today's competitive market by minimizing both costs and risk. Written by IBM The following article is an extract from the white paper "ITG Executive Summary: Value Proposition for IBM Power Systems Servers and IBM i: Minimizing Costs and Risks for Midsize Businesses" available for download free from the MC White Paper Center. The challenges faced by midsize businesses remain daunting. Weak markets, competitive pressures, cost-re...

Assess the Appropriateness of the iSeries/IBM i in Your Business

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:00:10 +0100

Learn to evaluate the future viability and potential challenges of IBM i on Power Systems, as well as IBM legacy midrange systems, to determine your organization's strategy for the platform. Written by Connectria Hosting The following article is an extract from the white paper "Assess the Appropriateness of the iSeries/IBM i in My Business" available for download free from the MC White Paper Center. Many organizations are apprehensive about buying or staying with the IBM i (iSeries) due to...

Power i Forecast: The State of Linux, Future Directions

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:00:15 +0100

More than just an operating system, Linux has become a movement leading the open-source charge. Written by Chris Smith When IBM consolidated its midrange server platform in 2008, it was perceived largely as a convergence of the System i and System p, or AIX, operating systems onto a single hardware platform. The fact that Power Systems would also run Linux appeared as a somewhat gratuitous concession to the growing worldwide interest in open-source software, a trend that was a polar opposite to...

Must You Buy a New Computer to Begin Using Windows 7?

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:00:10 +0100

A new computer helps, but you can upgrade from Windows XP if you take the right steps. Written by Chris Smith There are certain days we look forward to with dread, whether they be today—tax day April 15—the day our daughter first takes the car out on her own, or the day we lose a good friend following a long illness. Included on that list of dreads is the day we migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7....

Power i Forecast: AIX

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 06:00:15 +0100

IBM continues to gain share in the UNIX market, so what does the future hold for AIX running on Power? Written by Chris Smith IBM's revenue share of the UNIX market shot up in the fourth quarter of 2010 to about 50 percent, and the company reestablished itself as the world's leading provider of servers. Both Gartner and IDC released their estimates last week of how the world's leading server providers fared during the last quarter of 2010. While the numbers from each differed, both put IBM...

Linux Apps You'll Love!

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:00:15 +0100

Finding the apps you want or need used to be challenging. Not anymore! Written by Barry L. Kline I have been writing about the benefits of Linux in business for over a decade. Web serving (simple pages and Web services), spam control, email distribution, integration with a Windows network—these are all fairly trivial to implement. UNIX and UNIX-like (e.g., Linux) operating systems have been handling infrastructure tasks since the early '80s, and for many IT managers, this long history has led...

Is It Time to Replace Windows with Linux?

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:00:15 +0100

It might be time to give this idea some serious consideration. Written by Barry L. Kline MSDOS begat Windows 1.0, which begat Windows 2.0, which begat Windows 3.0, which begat Windows 3.1, which begat Windows 95, which begat Windows 98, which begat Windows ME, which begat Windows NT, which begat Windows 2000, which begat Windows XP, which begat Windows Vista, and the list goes on....

Should You Upgrade to V7?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:00:15 +0100

Let's review the advantages of getting current. Written by Jon Paris and Susan Gantner We're not really "bleeding edge" people. Whenever a new version of one of our favorite tools comes along, we rarely update immediately. We let others suffer the "new release blues" for a month or three and then make the move once we are convinced that the release is stable and offers functionality that we want and need. Even then, Jon generally acts as the company's designated guinea pig, boldly going where S...

Integrating Windows 7 Features with IBM i: What Works, What Doesn't, What Changed

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:00:15 +0100

It appears Microsoft has hit the PC operating system target with Windows 7. It's fast, intuitive, and secure, but what's in it for us IBM i professionals? Written by Chris Peters The reasoning for migration to Microsoft's latest version of its operating system is quite compelling, enough so that directors of traditional IBM i installations may decide the effort and expense of conversion is merited. This article examines the major benefits and significant limitations of migrating to Windows 7 in t...

My IBM i Top 10 Wish List

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:00:10 +0100

What would you like to see in RPG and on the IBM i? Written by Tom Snyder I don't know about you, but I am very curious to see the new capabilities that will be available with the latest enhancements that will be coming on the IBM i. Here is my top 10 list of things that I would like to see in a new RPG and on the IBM i in general....

Leverage the Power of AIX on Power Systems

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:00:15 +0100

Experienced administrators who need a quick, basic introduction to AIX performance tuning will want this handy reference on their bookshelf. Written by Barry L. Kline For many years, the "i" and "p" platforms have been completely distinct, and as a result, those of us who spent most of our professional lives using the various incarnations of OS/400 may never have seen a pSeries running AIX. Given the recent merger of the iSeries and pSeries into the Power platform, that era may soon pass. It's ju...

Get Industrial-Strength Virtualization for IBM i, AIX, and Linux with PowerVM

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:00:10 +0100

PowerVM-enabled virtualization is a means to control costs, improve performance, and enhance IT flexibility. Written by Henry Martinez In a business environment that demands that we all find ways to do more with less, virtualization has been accurately promoted as delivering a number of benefits, including the following:...

How to develop SMCLI commands for IBM Systems Director

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:00:00 +0100

SMCLI (systems management command-line interface) commands are an integral part of IBM Systems Director. They are used to perform many of the systems-management operations that can be accomplished from the IBM Systems Director Web interface. The aim of this tutorial is to introduce you to the basic concepts and steps regarding how to develop SMCLI commands for IBM Systems Director. See the original article ...

IBM AIX TCP Traffic Regulation

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

IBM AIX TCP Traffic Regulation (TR), introduced in IBM AIX 6.1 TL2, provides centralized port-based regulation of TCP connection resource utilization. TCP firewall profiles, customized by a security administrator, can now be loaded into the AIX kernel for active mitigation of TCP-based Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. See the original article ...

UNIX turns 40

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

The systems world will shortly be celebrating a major anniversary milestone. UNIX is turning 40 years old! Most of us know the story of how UNIX was born, but what about why? Was it born strictly because its founders wanted to play a computer game on a different platform? And why does UNIX continue to thrive 15 years after an (in)famous Byte Magazine article that asked, "Is UNIX dead?" How has AIX (the only UNIX flavor that has increased its market share through the years) been a part of the evol...

RPC programming

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Using RPC programming is one of the most powerful and efficient ways to ensure communication between client and server entities. It forms the basis for almost any application running on distributed computing environments. This article deals with the basic flow of events between an RPC client and server and later deals with runtime handling of these events. The different routines that are dealt in this article are categorized appropriately and described based on their functionality. See the origin...

AIX as a porting platform

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Building applications on a secondary platform is perhaps the simplest definition of a porting platform. This article explores the porting aspects in the context of AIX.

See the original article

AIX tips for RHEL4 administrators

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Are you broadening your skills as a Linux systems administrator into various flavors of UNIX? Have you found yourself in charge of IBM UNIX servers on short notice? Get a rundown of the differences and similarities between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM AIX so that you can perform day-to-day activities with ease. See the original article ...

Using alt_disk_copy

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

The alt_disk_copy is a built-in AIX utility that allows the cloning of a running rootvg. alt_disk_copy is typically used for upgrades that effect the running of AIX, cloning of disks for migration, and online backups of rootvg.

See the original article

Managing Storage Subsystems using IBM Systems Director V6.1.2

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

IBM Systems Director V6.1.2 is a tool that aids in the management of various devices such as servers, switches, and storage subsystems. This article addresses the nuances of managing the Storage Subsystem using the IBM Systems Director. IBM Systems Director uses the concept of a proxy provider that acts like an intermediate agent between the IBM Systems Director and Storage Subsystems. For DS3000 and DS4000 series Storage Subsystems, IBM Systems Director uses the LSI Storage Management Initiative...

Speaking UNIX: Peering into pipes

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0100

The pipe operator connects one UNIX command to another to create ad hoc programs right on the command line. But a pipe is something of a black box, occluding the data flowing from one utility to the next. Pipe Viewer provides a peek into the pipeline. Here's how to use it in day-to-day tasks. See the original article ...

Resolving problems unmounting partitions

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100

To cleanly shut down or hot swap storage hardware on a UNIX or UNIX-like system, you must be able to unmount any file system that uses storage on that device. However, you can't unmount a file system if files or directories in that file system are in use. The lsof and fuser commands can help you identify and terminate the processes that are using files on or executing from the storage devices that your system is using. Using these commands simplifies the traditional detective work associated with...

A quick guide to migrating to IBM Systems Director V6.1

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100

IBM Systems Director Server V6.1 includes migration tools that remove the complexity of migrating from the previous version of IBM Systems Director Server to Version 6.1. This overview of the migration process will prepare the user for what needs to be done and what to expect so that the migration can be as quick and easy as possible. See the original article ...

IBM Announces Interim Release 6.1.1 of IBM i

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:00:10 +0100

The company's statement of direction for Version 7.1 will affect RPG programmers, among others. Written by Chris Smith IBM announced an interim release of the IBM i operating system this week—6.1.1—and gave highlights on a statement of direction for the next major release in 2010 (Version 7.1) in which it said RPG would start to be "decoupled" from the 5250 data stream. The announcements were broad and detailed but can be broken down into the following main categories:...

Configuring an AIX client with multiple Kerberos realms

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100

A typical customer environment is heterogeneous and includes AIX, Windows, and Linux, which can be servers or clients. In many situations, an AIX Kerberos client needs to interact with multiple Kerberos realms hosted on a Windows or AIX Kerberos server to handle the requested services. This article explains the configuration details required to set the AIX Kerberos client to interact with multiple realms hosted on Windows Kerberos servers. See the original article ...

DB2 pureScale

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0100

DB2 pureScale reduces the risk and cost of business growth by providing unlimited capacity, continuous availability, and application transparency. DB2 pureScale on IBM Power Systems incorporates PowerHA pureScale technology to deliver levels of database scalability and availability unmatched on UNIX or x86 systems. This complements DB2 for z/OS and System z, the undisputed leader in total system availability, scalability, security and reliability. See the original article ...